In the twenty-first centurythere are stillthose whotravelon horseback.It is not aboutrides butlong-haulroutes,oftentens of thousands ofkilometres.

They areperpetratedby people who,
by choice,adopt anomadic lifestyleat length, over
monthsor years. It answers
some urgeto leave the
sedentaryway of life, to escape themodern world and to gointo the unknown.On topof a horse.

They arethose who "have the courage to break
the chainsof cities andridetowards thehorizon," says
CuChullaine
O'Reilly,
a founder of theLongRider'sGuild, an international
associationof equestrian
explorers. Theassociation
representsmen andwomen
throughout theworldwho have
travelledover a thousand
statute miles(1609
kilometres)in onecontinuousjourney on horseback.

Currently,believesCuChullaineO'Reilly, there are "several
hundred" Long Riders.

Everything is beautifulbecauseeverything isslow

One of the mostappreciated featurescited bylong distanceridersis the slownesswith which thetrip progresses.Thehorsetravelsat an averageof 5kilometres per hour.Thisslownessthey citeas one of the greatcharmsbecause itsets upan ideal balance betweenprogression
andobservation of the world.

Tosearch thewildernessesof Central Asiaon topof a horse,the French writer
SylvainTessonwrotesome of the most vivid pagesofnomadismin the modern era.
In the book"Petit
Traitésur
l'immensité dumonde"
he raises the question: "Does
anyone ever see anomadin a hurry?” This rejection of
speedputs manin harmonywith the landscape."Why is it that everything is
beautiful? Because everything isslow,"he notedin his "Géographie de l'instant".

American Long Rider Sea G Rhydr rode “ocean to ocean” across the USA.

"It's a rhythm that lends itself to contemplation," said Sea G Rhydr, an American who recently crossed the
United States to ride from the West Coast to the East Coast for 25 months.

Günter Wamser,
a German, confirms this view. Once a motorcycle traveller, he recalls how the
charm of equestrian trips started when he happened to exchange his motorcycle
for a horse somewhere in Guatemala. "I realized immediately one of the biggest
advantages of travelling on horseback.”

Travel at a slow pace is much more intense than with speed because if a person
travels slowly the density of experiences greatly increases", Wamser explains.

Günter took his time: in a horse journey across the entire Americas from
Patagonia in the far south to Alaska in the far north he covered more than
30,000 kilometres.

"It is the most suitable time to travel," Arita
Baaijens tells us on the phone. The Dutch woman had spent years
travelling with camels through the inhospitable areas of the deserts of Sudan,
Egypt or Mauritania and wrote several books on the subject. In recent times she
has been more dedicated to horseback trips in the remote lands of Kazakhstan,
China, Mongolia and Russia. "I'm not really against cars, but I would never make
a car or motorcycle expedition because, apart from the noise, this means that we
are not in touch with the environment around us and I like to be in contact with
nature," Baaijens explains.

In
all this
there isa certainwill to transcendthe modern worldthat manifestsa voluntaryrefusal ofmotor-driventravel. Regarding
that point,CuChullaine
O'Reillyis the most
assertive. In an exchange with
Jornal de Notíciashe said, "For the last fifty years,
the worldhas been reducedto
mediocrityby travel
machines."

CuChullaineO'Reillyis the author of"Encyclopaedia of
EquestrianExploration"
and many describe him asthe world's leadingexpert on the
subject. Hetries to clarify
theabove statement: "The
long distances that challengedour
ancestorsare now an easy
conquest.Theforeign landshave lost theirmystery.Prohibitedcontinentsare crossedin hours.Oceans areonlya nuisanceovercome by afacelesspilot aspassengersstruggle tostay awakeduring thesecond filmof theflight," he tells us.

CuChullaine O’Reilly
has spent more than thirty years studying equestrian travel techniques on
every continent.

Now,
in this age of"Anonymous
trips"that require us to"travel within the steel of
a plane or the cocoon of a car,"
the horse, he argues,
can be"the connection to the
amazingworld around us."
"You cannot relate to the worldif you'reflying," he
claims. But on top of ahorsesaddle,the travellerinteractswith the world. "Hedoes not travelat the speedof sound. Hemoves at the pace of the wind."

There are several motivations that lead the riders out into the world. One is
the tremendous influence exercised by the Swiss writer Aimé Tschiffely.
In his book "Tschiffely's
Ride", first published in 1933, he recounts his trip from Buenos Aires,
Argentina, to New York, USA. Reportedly these pages have inspired five
generations of long-distance riders. The Brazilian
Filipe Masetti Leite is one of them.

"When I was a kid, my father read me the book before going to sleep. I would lie
on my bed and imagine how it would be to travel on horseback through all those
countries," he tells us on the phone.

Several years later, Filipe was studying journalism in Canada when a light bulb
went off in his head, "What about making a horse journey back to Brazil?" His
initial fear - "I do not know if is possible to make such a trip in the 21st
century" – faded as he began researching the topic.

Then on July 8, 2012, he jumped onto a horse in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and
set off, with another horse along to carry the stuff. He arrived in Espírito
Santo do Pinhal, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 803 days later. And he arrived with three
horses because the Cherokee Indians in the United States had given him a
Mustang.

Along the way, Filipe Leite lived adventures such as in the days of old. He
witnessed situations like the time a man took five shots at a woman or the time
people were killed on a road in Guatemala. In Honduras he received shelter in
the home of a drug dealer.

Brazilian Long Rider Filipe Leite in Bolivia.

The biggest advantageof travellingon horseback, he
said, is the fact thatyou need helpevery day andthat this
stimulates contactwith people."Almost every day I spokewith 10, 20 or 30 people who ran
to find me helpin one wayor another. Theygaveme wateror
a placeto sleep," he says. "And
that would not have happened ifI
were todrive in a car and ask
directionstoa hotel."
Because of thehorse, he said,
"We have amuch greatercontactwith the localsthan withany other kind oftrip."

This generositywas indeedthe biggest lesson
he learnedin those803 days. "The tripopened myeyes tothe amount ofgood peoplein the world," he summarizes. He remembered
a poor familythathosted him in Guatemala."The people had nothing. It wasa tinyhouse
with very little food. But they killedthe onlychickenthey had, thatwas beingsavedfor Christmas,to giveme something
to eatthat night. That
is thelessonI learned;
the goodness ofhuman beings."

Love theanimal as achild

Long-distanceridersshare the viewthat the biggest challenge of theseodysseysis
ensuring thehealth of their animals. They
need to findwater for the
animals todrink or grassto
eat.And it'snot always easy."I lived with my horses 24 hours a day. There were
nights when Icould not findwater or foodto give themanditcutme to the heartbecause theyhad becomemy children,"
recalled the Brazilian Long Rider.

French Long Ride Sylvain Tesson rode the ancient
Silk Road through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

SylvainTessonhas writtenon the subjectby reportingabout a time when helived and rodeon the plains ofMongolia, "I
found a newpleasure by observingthe horseseating. No othersong isso sweetto the rider's ear than the noise of
a horsechewing."

SeaGRhydr
recalled that findingwater can pose achallenge, especially where running water is scarce."Sometimes it is also difficult to
dealwith its abundancewhen
we needto go throughoraroundrivers."

Günter rode from Patagonia to Alaska.

GünterWamser discovered the same concerns."The biggest worry of the tripsis alwaysthe welfareof the animals, giving them good
nutrition,timeto rest andkeeping them safeat all times."
The Germansays thatin his experience, "it
is evenmore difficultif we travelclose to civilization.While the dangersinwilderness areascanbecontrolled(staying safe in an area ofbears,for example), security
isbeyond our controlif weride closetobusy roads.
Sometimes," he continues, "we
have no choice, andI rememberthem asthe
worst timesof the whole trip."

"You
become veryZen"

Why
do these knightsnourish a particularpropensityto travelin remote areas, frequently far from
civilization, often being isolated, or
in search of acommunionwith the elements? Both the bighorseroutes
in Central Asia and the camel
routes in the deserts had a tremendous impact onAritaBaaijens. It openednew perspectiveson an
existential level.

"Maybe
people will notrealize this,but I learnedin the desert that,
I,
AritaBaaijens do notexistas such. We
are alla fantasy. We think we knowwho we arebutif we travelalonefor a long periodwe realizethat whatwe are iswhat otherpeople thinkabout us," explains
the Dutch Long Rider. “So if there is
no one around you, you becomeveryZen. Thou artnothing,whileyou areall", she
concludes.

Dutch Long Rider Arita Baaijens
completed the first modern circumnavigation of the entire Altai Mountain
Range on horseback.

All of this is done withoutfear orphobias.In the 25months of hervoyage, Sea learnedthat "the worldis much saferand moreenjoyable thanwe are oftenled to believe."
When she found herselfalone in a harsh landscape,
SeaGRhydrlearned"not tolisten to the voiceof fearand bemore comfortable with theunknown."

AritaBaaijensshares the sameviewpoint. "I came across
many difficultiesand wasalone forseveral weeks inroadlessareas ornothing at all," she says. Baaijens learned she had to
be firm to facethe uncertainties of
life. "Whatever happens,
I learned to be able todeal with itin one wayor another.And it makesme feel good."

A long relationship

Some may admire these people in twenty-first century society, others will be unable to
understand howthere are stillpeopletravelling byhorse whenthere areplanes. Are these peoplehippies
or malcontents, discontented with the social structure?

"For
over 100 yearspeople havebeen predictingthat humanityno longer needs thehorse," he
says. But he then evokes thelongrelationshipbetween humans andequines. “We
can look back now from the luxury of our computer-driven world and see how
everything, and nothing, has changed since
the first Long Rider
stepped up onto the back of his/her
horse.”

CuChullaine, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers’
Club, is the author of Khyber
Knights.

“However,” he
continues, “For six thousand years each generation of mankind has been supremely
confident, arrogant in the recurring belief that theirs is the ultimate
expression of the human experience. Meanwhile the horsemen and women of history
have watched from the sidelines while fires were first lit, wheels were
invented, pyramids were built, railroad lines were laid, automobiles were
driven, and computer screens were peered into. Throughout this vast never-ending
stream of human experience and effort one thing has run through our collective
unconsciousness, the need for terrestrial freedom,” he says.

No animal has
impacted the development of our species to such an extent as the horse, he says.
“It transformed our ancestors from plodding pedestrians into a race of roamers.”

As such,
anddespite the passageof thousands of years, "Equestrian
travelhas changed very little."

"There
have been improvements inequipment
butthe basic lawsstill
apply. There will always bea handful ofriderseager
to explorethe world, no matter what
yearis marked on thecalendar,"predictsthe Long Rider.